wilderness firing up the this week on "moyers & company," political zealot ralph reed is back from the wilderness firing up the faithful to support conservative candidates and raking in campaign cash. >> we're going to have the biggest victory we've had for time-honored values in the history of this country. >> the resurrection of ralph reed. and -- >> infusion of religion into politics and politics into religion, that's a toxic brew, as other countries have experienced.

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products that's why we're your retirement company. welcome. if you watched the republican convention in tampa only on primetime television you would have missed the story we're about to report. and it's the one that could make the biggest difference on election day in november. on the seventh day, we're told, god rested. but not ralph reed. there he was, the sundayefore the convention opened, speaking at a rally of his faith and freedom coalition. >> we're here today not just to celebrate faith and freedom but to pray for its survival. and unlike the other side, we haven't gathered in this city this week to anoint a messiah, because you see we already have a messiah, and we're not looking for one here on earth.

>> reed message was directed to conservate christians mitt romney must convert to his cause if he's to be elected president. romney is a mormon, a faith many on the religious right consider a cult, even a heresy. there's no love for romney among these people, but they are united in their loathing of barack obama. and that's where ralph reed comes in. >> four years ago, we heard a lot of talk about hope and change. people were fainting at campaign rallies. there were che guevera posters hanging in dorm rooms. the was one candidate who stood in front of greek columns and vowed to heal the planet and cause the oceans to recede. but you see our hope is in something this world doesn't fully understand. we hope for a kingdom yet to come.

the hope of a new heaven and a new earth, in which dwelleth righteousness. a place where every tear will be wiped away. and every broken hea will be aled. and all the pain and brokenness and poverty and injustice of this world will be gone. >> but first there's the devil to chase. >> i believe that barack obama is a direct threat to the survival of the country i grew up in. >> dear friends, our religious liberty is at stake in this election, because obama is at war with all religion in any public place, any public square any publischool. >> for the first time in centuries the president of the united states has officially declared himself an enemy of traditional marriage between one man and one woman. >> you are witness to a modern tale of resurrection. a second-coming. the bible speaks of lazarus, raised by jesus from the grave

to walk again among the living. ralph reed, too, has been returned to life, political life. but he goes lazarus one further. lazarus was a poor man. reed is rich, and he just keeps getting richer from mixing religion and politics. and that's a story you don't want to miss. at age 33, ralph reed was the christian right's wonder boy. anointed in a 1995 "time" magazine cover story as the "right hand of god" for spinning the trust of conservative christians into political gold. it was reed who built the christian coalition of televangelist pat robertson into a powerful arm of the republican party. >> as religious conservatives we have finally gained what we have always sought. a place at the table, a sense of legitimacy and a voice in the conversation that we call democracy. >> in 2000, reed helped put george w. bush and dick cheney in the white house.

>> ralph reed is with us, he's the southeast regional chairman. >> and four years later he corralled true believers for their re-election. but reed fell from grace in 2006 after he was implicated in the biggest washington scandal since watergate. his pal and colleague, the lobbyist jack abramoff, pleaded guilty to defrauding clients of millions of doars. some of which had nded in reed's pockets as well. reed's exile in political purgatory was cut short in 2008 by an event he said left him feeling as if he'd "been hit by a truck" -- barack obama's victory. >> if there is anyone out there who still doubts that america is a place where all things are possible -- tonight is your answer. >> as i prayed about it, and i thought about what can i going to do, i'm not ready to give up on america,

i realized that god's not looking for perfect people, because there's only been one perfect person in the history of the human race -- he wants people who will come to him just as they are, with all their fears and all their failures and all their foibles, and just utter one simple line. and that is -- here am i, send me. and thawas my prayer. >> reed got his answer. not from an angel whispering in his hear but from a more familiar, earthbound messenger, sean hannity, fox news anchor, talk radio host and reed's old friend. >> this was probably three weeks after the '08 election. my phone rang, and it was sean hannity, and he said ralph, we can't let this happen again, you've got to do something. and i said, well, sean, i've been thinking about it and i've been praying about it, and i

said, i want to know that it's not me, i want to know that it's not any ambition of mine. i want to know that i'm doing this for the lord, and that's the only reason why i'm doing it. and he said ralph, god is speaking to you through this phone line right now and he's using me to deliver the message. >> so ralph reed was called back up to the major leagues. but he was short on what the people of the good book used to call "manna from heaven." in this case, the cold, hard cash that's the elixir of politics. miraculously, no doubt, it arrived as a gift from an undisclosed donor, a half milln doars. which, in 2009, reed used to launch his faith and freedom coalition. because it's designated by the irs as a 501 c 4 non-profit, reid can conceal the identity of his funders from the public, which, indeed, he has done. but he makes no secret of his goal.

>> beginning right now, today, we are going to take our country back and we are going to end the obama agenda forever. >> by the end of 2010, according to tax returns, reed had raised almost $5.5 million. watered by more secret funds, he now has a budget of $10 million, and continues to pass the collection plate. he says he intends to build the 21st century version of the christian coalition, with an annual budget of $100 million, 5 million members, full-time lobbyists in all 50 state capitols, and an enormous database. and while he counts all this as god'blessing on hicalling, he also acknowledges his debt to the five conservative justices on the supreme court who paved the way. >> we've now got the citizens' united case. we can, where we so choose, within the parameters of whatever regulations the federal elections commission ultimately

promulgates, engage in express advocacy, that is advocating the election or defeat of candidates, same as the corporations or labor unions. >> so that's just what he's doing, as he told the faithful gathered in tampa. >> we've identified 17 million faith-based voters in5 stes, living in 11 million households. every one of those households is going to be contacted by this organization, 7 to 12 times. we're going to mail them, we're going to text them, we're going to email them, we're going to phone them, and if they haven't voted by november 6 we're going to get in a car and we're going to drive to their house and we're going to get them to the polls. >> reed claims credit for a string of victories leading up to the big showdown with obama this november. when republican bob mcdonnell won the race for governor of virginia in 2009, reed's brand new faith and freedom coalition

was there. >> do you want to hand these out? >> contacting, he said, every social and fiscal conservative voter an average of seven times. enough, he also said, to make the difference. >> thank all of you, god bless you. >> after republicans swept into control of the house in the 2010 mid-term elections, reed called a press conference in washington the very next day to claim bragging rights. >> it was the most ambitious, the most comprehensive, and the most effective voter contact and get-out-the-vote effort aimed at the conservative faith community in modern american political history, or at least as long as i've been doing it, which is 30 years. 16 million voter guides. 8 million pieces of mail. three pieces of mail to every social conservative household in certain areas. they received an average of three phone calls, d many of them received a knock on the door. >> they're also the voters reed

says he reached in wisconsin earlier this year. >> thank you, god bless you, and god bless the great state of wisconsin. >> when republican governor scott walker beat back the effort to recall him from office, ralph reed totaled up the numbers and announced that his faith and freedom coalition had contacted over 600,000 voters. reed's funders, whoever they are, for they're cloaked in secrecy, are obviously buying into s promisthat wisconsin was batting pracce for november. i'm cling fm the faith and freedom coalition -- >> when the faith and freedom coalition claims it will reach 27 million conservative voters, from the ranks of both the religious right and the tea party brigades, with all the tools it can muster. >> and just in case you haven't figured this out, there's one sure fire way to deal with elected officials who attack christian beliefs and ignore the first amendment, vote them out of office.

on every government level -- national, stat city, comunitywe'll have the oprtity takour beefs and values into the voting booth on november 6th and to vote accordingly. >> earlier this summer, at the "under god, indivisible" rally in texas, reed told the crowd of 6,000 to beg the almighty's forgiveness for the state of the country -- >> and i believe in november, god is going to have mercy on our land and we will have a renaissance of the values that made this country great. >> music to mitt romney's ears. >> wow, look at this! this is an old-fashioned revival. i wore my jeans. lo at that, i wore m-- ralph reid is doing a great job here with the faith and freedom coalition. this is going to make a big impact across america, and i appreciate the work that you are doing here. >> romney needs reed's blessing, because romney's a mormon. and a recent poll says his religion makes one in nearly every four white evangelicals uncomfortable. romney can't lose them and still win in november.

so romney must bond with the christian right. >> marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman. >> in tampa, reed called on the flock to do their part. >> register the unregistered. educate. the bible says my people perished for lack of knowledge. let's give them the knowledge they need. thirdly vote. and fourthly pray for the next 72 days. >> ralph reed was in his glory in tampa, his reincarnation in full swing. but there are some other things you need to know about reid. first when he bailed out of the christian coalition in 1997, only two years after his b "time" magazine cover story, he had driven the organization into the ground. it was nearly bankrupt, under investigation by the federal election commission, and facing charges from its own financial officer that reed's cronies had ripped off almost a million dollars.

despite that record, reid went on to flourish in the early years of george w. bush. until it was disclosed that the "right hand of god" had his other hand out to his old friend, the super-lobbyist jack abramoff, and was raking in the cash. reid's allies today say they're not bothered by all that. ralph has a great track record, said one. reid's ties to abramoff are quote, "largely in the rear-view mirror." perhaps. but the view from the rear-view mirror can be quite revealing. let's take a look. >> senator, i respectively invoke the privilege as previously stated. >> and i'd say to you mr. abramoff, shame on you. >> it was 2006. ramoff empe ofreed and fraud was collapsing. my colleague sherry jones and i produced the documentary "capitol crimes," piecing together what was happening. she and i had been tracking money in politics for 30 years,

but corruption on this scale took our breath away. the story began in 1984 when a young jack abramoff was introduced at another republican national convention. >> one of the ever-growing lists of young people who have joined in the republican cause, the chairman of the college republican national committee, jack abramoff. >> a self-described "rabid right winger," abramoff headed the organization that launched the careers of many republican power brokers, including karl rove and the crusader against taxes, grover norquist. >> fellow republicans, i come before you today representing american students, the future of our republican party. >> it was as college students organizing campuses for ronald reagan that jack abramoff, grover norquist and ralph reed first met. >> good morning. my name is ralph reed. i'm the executive director of

students for america. >> reed was a junior from the university of georgia and a $200 a month intern with the college republicans. he and the other young pols embraced the spirit of the cold war against communism and applied it to domestic politics. in war, their aim was to destroy the enemy. >> it was very simple, very black and white. we used army metaphors. we talked about being hard core. >> they dreamed up headline-grabbing stunts in the shadow of the capitol, and sent volunteers out to organize the grass roots. the young recruits were ordered to memorize the famous opening speech from the movie patton, but to substitute the word "democrats" for the word "nazis." "spill their blood," they were instructed. >> if we're the party of composure, and not the party that ducks disclosure, then we're riding our wave. if we equivocate, capitulate,

accommodate, negotiate -- >> abramoff chose the young groverorquist as his ght-hand man. they intended, said abramoff, to remove their opponents from power permanently. >> and so it is to our party that they come. it is with us that they trust our dreams. and it is in us that they place their hopes. >> by november 1994, 10 years later, republicans won eight new senate seats and a whopping 52 seats in the house. the conservative revolution imagined by the college republicans was embodied in the new speaker of the house, newt gingrich . andt thcenter of the action was grer nquis norquist had created americans for tax reform, which he turned into the movement's nerve center. once a week, congressional staff, party activists, and rightwing think tankers held strategy sessions in his office. it was norquist who concocted a grand scheme to turn washington into a republican company town

by making sure only republicans were hired as lobbyists and lobbyists contributed only to republicans. he dubbed it the k street project, after the lobbyists' main drag downtown. it paved the way for jack abramoff. >> what the republicans need, said norquist, is 50 jack abramoff's. then this becomes a different town. >> they were probably about as inseparable as two political people can get. jack had left washington. he didn't have the day-to-day contact with his networks. so if grover vouched for him, then abramoff was fine. >> abramoff had gone home to los angeles, but returned to washington to work for a prominent firm, which announced his hiring by touting the lobbyist's ties to the republican national committee, the new leaders of the house, newt gingrich and tom delay, and the christian coalition now headed by his buddy ralph reed.

but no one was more indispensable to abramoff than norquist. >> if it wasn't for his relation with grover norquist, jack abramoff would never have been able to become the super lobbyist that he came. and to charge the huge rates that hecharged because he had this unique relationship with certain reblic lears. >> the hefty fees would enrich abramoff, who in turn would direct his clients to enrich the right-wing's political machine. one of those clients was the wealthiest gambling tribe in america, the mississippi choctaw. to keep their huge casino earnings from being taxed, the tribe needed help in washington. so abramoff turned to norquist, who had just what the tribe was looking for dtributi-- an organ dedicated to opposing all tax increases. so the two old college comrades framed the casino tax as a tax increase that conservatives should on principle oppose.

activists at norquist's weekly meetings suddenly found themselves discussing indian tribes. >> we didn't know one tribe from another. so what. let them have their casino. we didn't know. nobody knew they were multi-billion dollar entities. it's not something anybody paid attention to. >> but norquist was paying attention. and to lobby for their cause he had the choctaw put up the money to organizanti-tax groups across the country. >> why in the world would grover norquist care about, care so deeply about indian tribes, unless there was something else going on. we all suspected something pretty fishy. >> the choctaw became a major contributor to norquist's organization. and norquist, in turn, was moving some of that money to the third member of that old college republican troika, ralph reed. as the pious head of the christian coalition, reed publicly opposed gamblin th refcts at wbelive is one of the greatest cancers

growing on the american body politic and that is the scourge of legalized gambling. >> but by the mid-1990s, after leaving the christian coalition, reed had set up his own political consulting firm. he sent an email to his old friend abramoff, who was now known on k street as "casino jack." this is what reed wrote. >> "hey, now that i'm done with electoral politics, i need to start humping in corporate accounts! i'm counting on you to help me with some contacts." >> abramoff came through. he and reed teamed up in a campaign to protect the choctaw casino against competition from other tribes. the scheme called for reed to organize his fellow christians to oppose new casinos on moral grounds -- without ever telling them that his own client "casino jack" was in the gambling business, too. emails between them make clear where the money came from.

when reid pushed for a green light to organize christians in abama against gambling, abramf sa approvawoul first have to come from the choctaw, and demanded. >> get me invoices as soon as possible so i can get choctaw to get us checks asapp. >> reed wrote back with a list and a total. >> we have fronted 100 k, which is a lot for us. >> abramoff promised to do what he could. >> "any chance that a wire from choctaw directly would be ok?" >> just days later, reed tells abramoff. >> we are opening the bombays and holding nothing back. yeah, baby! >> to conceal the source of the money being paid to reed from the trusting believers he had recruited, abramoff once again turned to their accomplice grover norquist, who used his anti-tax campaign as cover. in turn, when norquist needed money for his own organization he turned to abramoff. >> "what is the status of the choctaw stuff?

i have a $75k hole in my budget from last year. ouch." >> in a reminder to himself, abramoff notes. >> call ral re grov doi pass throug >> and then tells reed -- >> "i need to give grover something for helping, so the first transfer will be a bit lighter." >> with the next $300,000, norquist took a taste of the action. when he did it again, abramoff noted his surprise. >> "grover kept another $25k!" >> the money spigot was now wide open. abramoff was being paid millions as a lobbyist. reed was being paid millions to dupe his fellow cistians. and norquist was feeding cash to his political operation by acting as their front. the one-time college republicans had turned the conservative revolution into a racket.

>> what's the basis for your tribe making a donation to americans for tax reform? >> i have no idea, senator. i did not understand it then. i opposed it and i don't understand it today. >> did you, mr. abramoff ,you and your partner, your colleague, mr. scanlon, give $4 million to ralph reed? >> senator, i respectfully evoke the privileges previously stated. >> despite abramoff's zipped lip, senate investigators were able to expose even more chicanery yet another tribe, the coushatta in louisiana, hired abramoff and partner mike scanlon to stop rival tribes from opening competing casinos across the border in texas. again they turned to ralph reed, who said he could use his cistianonneions to stir up the religious folk in texas to oppose the new casinos. and once again, reed didn't tell his fellow christians he was actually working for gambling

interests right next door in louisiana. abramoff's partner mike scanlon informed the coushatta that paying reed was crucial to success in texas. >> "simply put we want to bring out the wackos -- the wackos get their information from the christian right, christian radio, the internet, and telephone trees." >> i do guerrla warfare, reid once boasted. i paint my face and travel at night. you don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. in texas, his weapons of mass deception included bogus christian front groups that the "wackos" would believe to be the real thing. >> it had the earmarks of guerrilla activity, not from a do-gooder faith, commitment perspective, but all the earmarks of just big corporate business and how they operate when they decide to try to smash somhing.

>> reed's e-mails to abramoff were insistent. he needed money, and he needed it now. at one point, abramoff responded. >> give me a number. >> $225k a week for tv. $450k for two weeks of tv." >> "ralph, they are going to faint when they see these numbers." >> but reed claimed he was worth it. >> we have over 50 pastors mobilized with a total membership in those churches of over 40,000. >> we have one ofur repters bad in dallawho did a lot of calling around and just asking pastors, "well, were you involved in this?" and lo and behold, no one was. >> marvin olasky suspected something was fishy. the editor in chief of the world, a national journal of the evangelical right, had his team dig into reed's involvement with abramoff. >> there was a lot of fooling going on -- abramoff, in a way, was manipulating ralph reed, ralph reed was manipulating

others, but perhaps ralph reed was manipulating abramoff and saying, "i'm accomplishinghese things," whereas he wasn't. so, you know, there were millions of dollars changing hands, there were actually hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in this whole thing. >> you know, there's something ironic and amusing in all that, is that while abramoff was shaking down these indians, it's quite possible that ralph reed was shaking down jack abramoff. >>they were now turning on each other. when mike scanlon quizzed his partner -- >> did ralph spend all the money he was given to fihthis or does he have me left? >> abramoff replied. >> that's a silly question. he would never admit he has money left over. would we? >> no, but -- >> he is a bad version of us. no more money for him. >> you know, i think when i read

that phrase about ralph reed, that he's a bad version of us, i've got to tell you, my heart hurt. that you could really just disregard the values and the rules that you've played by. and for what? we all come to the edge of that shore at some point in our lives and have to ask ourselves, am i going to step over that? and for what? for money? for you know, raking off money for my own political gains or whatever. that's what it, that's what it said to me, that ralph reed had stepped across some kind of moral line, even jack abramoff would say he's a bad version of ourselves. >> by 2004, the jig was up. senate hearings exposed the story of front groups, secret kickbacks and political payoffs at the heart of abramoff's empire.

22 people received criminal penalties, lawmakers, lobbyists, bush administration officials and congressional staffers. abramoff and his partner scanlon pleaded guilty to charges they had bilked their native american clients out of nearly $40 million dollars. they both land in prison, abramoff sved almost four years before being released in 2010. claiming redemption, he has written a memoir, he blogs as an advocate for cleaning up corruption in politics, and has a talk show on satellite radio. grover norquist escaped scrutiny and is still riding high, threatening republican politicians with defeat at the polls if they dare vote to increase taxes. most republicans in congress have signed norquist's pledge just as joe kaufmann, running forongress from florida, is doing here, at a confenc sponsored, surprise, by ralph reed's faith and freedom coalition. >> this is a commitment to the

people of florida that joe will not raise their taxes, tax reform is a good idea, tax changes that are a trojan horse for tax increases are not a good idea. so this is a pledge tax reform yes, tax increases no. >> ralph reed was a central figure in the jack abramoff scandal, according to the bipartisasene committee that investigated and detailed more than $5.3 million dollars abramoff had paid reed. but ralph reid was never charged. he had double-crossed his trusted followers and made them pawns in a power game. but it isn't necessarily a criminal offense to be a phony. a false prophet out to make a profit. the scandal did derail reed's hopes for public office in 2006. it broke while he was running in the republican primary for lieutenant governor of georgia. his republican opponent made political hay with th abramoff mess.

>> ralph reed took millions from convicted felon, jack abramoff, to help casinos. and reed worked with abramoff to deny women and children legal protection from sweatshops in the marianna islands, a u.s. territory. even though our government warned that women on the islands were subjected to forced abortions and children were coerced into prostitution. ralph reed, his values are for sale. >> reed remains unapologetic. he was confronted by a blogger last year who posted this footage on youtube. >> mr. reid, you've got a reputation for integrity and morality with thousands of supporters. do you have anything to apologize for regarding the indians and the abramoff double-dealing? >> no. i don't think so. that was thoroughly looked at and it was thoroughly investigated and i was never accused of doing anything wrong. >> have you visited him in prison? >> i did not. >> have you written to him? >> i did not. but i prayed for him constantly and i wish nothing but the best for him and his family. and i believe that god can cause

something really good to come out of all of this. >> that remains to be en. meanwhile, "the "right hand of god," still mixes politics, religion, and money for party and profit. still covers his tracks in a fogbank of secrecy, complexity, and sleight-of-hand. still says to his flock, "trust me." you heard reed boast earlier about how his faith and freedom coalition reached out to 600,000 voters to keep scott walker from being recalled. the organization's tax forms show no compensation to reed. however, the washington bureau chief for alternet.org, adele stan, found that the non-profit coalition did hire a for-profit company to help turn out the vote. that for-profit company is millennium marketing, a division of century strategies, whose founder and ceo is ralph reed. reed is again armed for

guerrilla warfare, with millions of dollars that are almost impossible to trace. it's reported that some of the money has come from billionaire bernie marcus, a co-founder of home depot, and some has come rom a nprot partly funded by the billionaire koch brothers. the brothers also have their own tax exempt vehicle, americans for prosperity, a 501c4 nonprofit-- which allows them to raise money without revealing the source. it is run by tim phillips, ralph reed's former business partner. it's an incestuous world they have created, and much of the money travels in secret subterranean pipelines from donors whose identities and agendas remain hidden. we may never find out where reed's faith and freedom coalition funds are coming from. the right hand of god doesn't have to reveal what the left hand is doing. >> we're going to endure the ridicule and the attacks and the insults. if we have to, we're going to crawl across broken glass, but

we are coming and when we come we're going to have the biggest victory we've had for time-honored values in the history of this country. that's what's getting ready to happen. >> the growing power of the religious right is one reason my guest left the republican party and became an independent. "the mixture of politics and religion," he says, "debases both, and has turned the gop into an apocalyptic sect." he has his problems with democrats, too. for one thing, he says, both parties are captives cooratloot. others may share those opinions, but what gives mike lofgren more clout than the rest is decades of insider experience on capitol hill.

he was a fulbright scholar with two degrees in history when he went to work in congress and became a senior staff member of the house and senate budget committees. his specialty was the cost of national security. after 28 years of government service, mike lofgren retired and sat down to write a powerful manifesto that took off like a rocket when it was posted on the website truthout.org. >> it's now a book "the party is over, how republicans went crazy, democrats became useless, and the middle class got shafted. as you can tell from the title, he spares no one. mike lofgren, welcome. >> good to be here. >> the title of your book is "the party is over: how republicans went crazy." how did republicans go crazy? >> i think they went crazy when they started identifying obama as the antichrist. >> meaning? >> meanin he's not a legimatepresident, we must do

everything we can to obstruct him. >> the second subtitle, "the party is over, democrats became useless." how did democrats become useless? >> i think they got complacent during the '60s, '70s, and '80s. and then finally after that period, they woke up, found they had lost three straight presidential elections. so they had to retool and make themselves more corporate friendly. >> corporate friendly? >> absolutely. and it certainly helped bill clinton get elected. and while he did some od this like banci the budget, he also unleashed wall street by repealing glass-steagall, and he signed bills that would end regulation on derivatives. so he is at least to some degree responsible for the wall street debacle. >>and that's how, to quote a third of your subtitles, "the middle class got shafted"?

>> both parties don't really seem to care about having a vibrant manufacturing base in this country, regardless of their rhetoric. iememr throughout the '90s the clinton administration was lobbying relentlessly for free trade deals. and the promise for each one was, it will bring jobs to america. and in every case, the jobs left. >> the republican party now has the super rich and its corporate wing funding it and the religious right provides the ground troops. why are so many everyday folks out there in the pews defending the prerogatives of the rich? >> that's something of a mystery. the federal reserve, in one of their recent reports, found that net household income fell about 40% since 2007. that's a tremendous drop. yet, here we have as the nominee

for one of the two major parties, we only have a binary choice in this country, is by all accounts the richest man ever to run fopresent an was a leverage buyout artist. the party is really oriented towards the concerns of the rich. it's about cutting their taxes, reducing regulation on business, making things wide open for wall street. now you're not going to get anybody to the polls and consciously pull the lever for the republicans if they say, our agenda is to further entrench the ric and ,by t wayyourension may take hit so they use the culture wars quite cynically, as essentially rube bait to get people to the polls. and that explains why, for instance, the koch brothers were early funders of michele

bachmann, who is a darling of the religious right. they don't care particularly, i would assume, about her religious foibles. what they care about is the bottom line. and these relious right candidates, many of them belvingn thheal and wealth, name it and claim it prosperity gospel, believe that the rich are sanctified and the poor punished. >> many of those people on the right would tell you that the fall in the income of middle-class people and others has been because of obama's economic policies. >> i think they're suffering from selective amnesia. they also don't understand that george bush doubled the national debt, that the original meltdown on wall street occurred during george bush's watch, and by the time obama became president

in 2009, we were already well into the recession. now i don't defend him in every way. i don't say that everything he's done is right by any means. i have all kinds of issues with him on the health care legislation. for instance, his willingness to play ball with pharma made the bill cost a lot more than it need. >> the pharmaceutical industry? >> yes. that said, he was legitimately elected. we were in a very, very serious situation in this country. if the economy had fallen any further, it would be comparable to the great depression. so what is minority leader mitch mcconnell in the senate, what is his first priority for the country? is it getting jobs for people? s itestoring the solvency the fincial system?

s itorei policy? is it any of those things? no, it's making sure obama is a one-term president. >> it seems that some of these people are willing to see the government go down in order to win. >> that would be the case. i grew up in a party that believed in the traditions of eisenhower, and for that matter, even reagan. he raised taxes several times when the deficit threatened to get out of control. he pleaded with congress to send him a clea debtimit extension bill, without any extraneous riders on it. he knew what the stakes were. but now it's basically obstruct. they're no longer a parliamentary loyal opposition. they want to seize up the wheels of government. and to most people that means you don't have federal inspectors of airliners, you

don't have federal inspection of food safety, your national parks will be closed. federalaw forcemenwill go home. that's what that means. >> why did you leave the party? you'd been a republican, what, all your life? >> i left the party because it was becoming an apocalyptic cult. because you cannot govern a country of 310 million people that is the greatest economic power on earth and the greatest military power on earth as if it's a banana republic. you can't govern it with people who think tt obama was born erseas orho elve all manner of nonsense about climate change. they don't even know, apparently, where babies come from, if we're to believe todd akin. >> what do you mean "apocalyptic cult"?

>> well, i mean it literally in some cases. there's a very strong element in evangelical or fundamentalist religion that said the apocalypse is coming. and one sort of sees it subliminally in people lik miche bachmann when the dt ceiling crisis came to a head and people were warning that we would be downgraded, and if we actually defaulted, we would possibly have to lower our standard of living and credit from abroad could dry up. and her attitude was sort of, bring it on, if we're all going to abide in the bosom of the lord, by and by, it really doesn't matter whether we default. >> was that just rhetoric we heard on television? >>h, tt's maly rtori but i think it does carry over into the mentality of maximalist obstruction, no compromise, because of course when you are with the saints and the

opposition is with the sinners, you are doing evil if you compromise. >> you write that we now have a de facto religious test for public office, notwithstanding that the constitution says we must not have one. how does this play ou >> well, we saw it in 2008, when a pastor brought obama and mccain before a live audience and quizzed them about their religiosity. that was rick warren. we really don't need that sort of religious test. it's banned in the constitution. we had it play out last year when some preacher in texas started criticizing romney cause as a mormon, th man thought he wasn't christian. >> the southern baptist convention, which is the largest

protestant denomination in the world has officially labeled mormonism as a cult. i think that romney's a good, moral man, but i think those of us who are born-again followers of christ should always prefer a competent christian to a competent non-christian like mitt romney. >> the media went off on that for a few days. and as i recall, some of the reporters were badgering the other republican cndidates as to whether ey tught romney was chriian. so the media actually allowed itself to be used as a tool in this aspect. >> candy crowley kept pressing herman cain and michele bachmann in the primaries on this very issue. >> is mitt romney a non-christian? >> i'm not running for theologian-in-chief. i'm a life-long christian, and what that means is, one of my guiding principles for the decisions i make is i start with, do the right thing. i'm not getting into that controversy.

>> but it still will beg the esti thayou dodged a direct question, which is, is mitt romney not a christian? >> he is a mormon. that much i know. i am not going to do an analysis of mormonism versus christianity for the sake of answering that. i'm not getting into that. i am a christian. >> even knowing it will look like you're dodging it and let me just, because i gave herman cain the same opportunity, you know that, that by not answering the direct question, do you think mitt romney is a christian, you leave open a possibili th the people are going to s you dodg the questn, the direct question. >> no, i think what the real focus is here, again, is on religious tolerance. >> well, i'll give them credit. they didn't answer her, because the question didn't deserve an answer. romney's religion is his own business. >> what brought you to the moment you decided to make a break, and to issue that cry

from the heart if i may say so, that went out on "truthout"? what was the trigger? >> thtrigger was the debt ceiling crisisof t summeof 2011. i thought it was so transparently needless, yet they did it. and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. now it wasn't just a publicity stunt that gave the united states a black eye, just the transaction costs for having to manipulate all the money and stave off the debt ceiling cost, according to the government accountability office, $1.3 billion. >> andhy did that impasse ocr? why couldn't they solve the deficit crisis? or why wouldn't they solve the deficit crisis? >> because they believed that they had obama over a barrel. and that they could force him to do what they wanted, which was

to radically downsize all domestic discretionary spending. and he wasn't going to do it. and that's how we got to that situation. >> what do you think's going to happen after the election, no matter who wins? because the popular expectation is at we're heading toward a fiscal cliff. are we going to go through in those few months between the election and the inauguration, what we went through with the deficit crisis that you just talked about? >> i would say the likeliest possibility is that we'll get some sort of short-term extension of the provisions to kick the can down the road a little bit. now, i'm not saying that will happen. there's also a possibility if past is prologue that the tea party faction in t hou cou dig in its heels and say no, just as they did with the debt ceiling crisis. >> and what then would be the consequence of that, as you can anticipate it? >> the consequence would be

immediate and severe spending cuts, both on domestic discretionary, and on national defense. >> both parties catering, as you write so vividly in here, to their funders, their donors, the billionaires, the wall street financiers, the corporations. and yet one or the other keeps getting away with it. >> it's happed before in our country. ihapped after theivil war th e gldedage. so it's not surprising it can occur when money starts infusing into politics. they will capture the governmental mechanism, just as wall street has captured it now. wall street has captured washington at its source, the capital. >> just give me one example. >> one example would be banks that we are bailing out. why not compensation limits on their ceos antop executives?

we didn't get that. but we did get limits on the compensation and the benefits of u.a.w. employees when we bailed out general motors and chrysler. >> we got from unions what we didn't get from the financiers on wall street? >> that is correct. >> how come? how so? >> money from wall street into the pockets of campaigns. >> if somebody texts $20 to eir favorite cadidae, ay, at's $20. d they'rnot allyxpecting anything other than they like that candidate and they want him to win. but when savvy businessmen like sheldon adelson, who've shelled out $36 million so far and expects to spend $100 million before the end of the election cycle, when somebody like that is spending that kind of money, they expect a tangible, monetizable payoff.

>>nother example? >> when you see legislation, for instance, having to do with casinos, and i think the key word there is jack abramoff, you see these things happening. >> did anything about the abramoff scandal surprise you? >> not at all. it was totally par for the course. >> what do you mean? >> that's the way influence works in washington. >> do you think it's still working now after abramoff? i think it's working in a similar fashion. when we see how ralph reed nd grover norquist, they were the two other members of the three amigos. they're still out doing their thing. >> but what do we do about it? nothing seems to tame the power of money in politics. >> the only thing that will achieve it is fundamental political reform. and the only way you're going to

get that is mass defection from the parties. because the parties simply do not servour interests anymore. >> but the less we pay attention, the morof us who ve , the smaller the base and the number of elites who run those two parties. that's what some of them want. >> that may be, but there is a point where if there is mass public outrage at this, just as there was in the prairies in the 1880's and 1890's, eventually they'll get the message. >> what's your greatest fear? >> my greatest fear is that this ole passsimply cares on. and this country becomes more and more polarized and ungovernable. and we could be faced with a very bad situation, internationally and domestically. >> and what is your greatest hope? >> my greatest hope is that we can govern ourselves again in a spirit of bipartisanship.

>> do you think that's a realistic hope? >> we must let our hopes be greater than our fears. >> well, i consider "the party is over" must reading. and i hope my audience will spend these days between one convention and the other getting acquainted with your analysis of what's happening. "the party is over: how republicans went crazy, democrats became useless, and the middle class got shafted." mike lofgren, thank you for being with us. >> thank you very much. ♪ >> that's it for this week. at our website, billmoyers.com, our colleagues at the sunlight foundation have gone behind the scenes at the republican convention, reporting on the

lavish parties hosted by lobbyists, corporations and political fundraisers. you can find out what they've discovered about the secret wheeling and dealing that's going on out of sight from what you see on tv. that's all at billmoyers.com. i'll see you there and i'll see you here next time. don't wait a week to get more moyers. visit billmoyers for videos, blogs and essay features. this episode is available on dvd for $19.95. call 1-800-336-1917 or write to the address on your screen.

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